Brianna Randall – The National Wildlife Federation Bloghttps://blog.nwf.org
The National Wildlife Federation's blogMon, 19 Nov 2018 15:22:31 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.8139259312Beavers, Water, and Fire—A New Formula for Successhttps://blog.nwf.org/2018/10/beavers-water-and-fire-a-new-formula-for-success/
Tue, 30 Oct 2018 13:58:34 +0000http://blog.nwf.org/?p=137264In the arid western U.S., water is life. Wet areas—like streamsides, ponds, and meadows—comprise less than 2% of the landscape but are vitally important for wildlife. Unfortunately, nearly half of …

Conservation partners increasingly work with nature to heal streams. Rather than big, expensive construction equipment, they’re using more cost-effective, low-tech methods. Some of these methods recreate the work that was once performed over large parts of our country by beavers, and simultaneously preparing the landscape for beavers to move back in. These include, but are not limited to:

Placing clumps of woody debris in the channel to slow stream flow and add habitat complexity

Building stone features that heal incised gullies by reducing erosion and encouraging plants to grow

“The challenge is to find ways of restoring watersheds that are affordable enough to be scaled up to address the scope of degradation,” explains Joe Wheaton, Associate Professor and Fluvial Geomorphologist at Utah State University. “We are trying to use low-tech techniques that will kickstart natural recovery processes with the least amount of money.”

“People are really excited after seeing these low-tech structures in action,” says Wheaton. “You can turn a trickle into a pond after one day’s work. It seems like a magic trick, but it’s really just a matter of changing up the timing of how long water sticks around.”

And, importantly, these “emerald refuges” provide valuable wildlife habitat during wildfires, which are burning more frequently and more intensely across western landscapes.

Blue collar conservation

Low-tech restoration approaches are less risky, less expensive, and easier to install than traditional highly-engineered restoration projects.

Since the best practice is to use natural, locally-sourced ingredients to feed the stream, such as branches from recently cut trees, turf and mud, or existing rocks, the materials are often already on site…and free!

“We think of low-tech restoration as ‘blue collar conservation’ because anyone can build these structures,” explains Jeremy Maestas, an ecologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service. “That means we get more people involved in conservation, plus we can repair more streams in need.”

“These low-tech projects are often less than one-tenth the cost of traditional restoration projects,” says Wheaton.

How they work for people and wildlife

Streams need a steady “diet” of water, dirt, rocks and wood. These natural elements wash down during floods and slow a stream’s flow, spreading water across the landscape where it can be stored longer between flood events. Each stream’s diet is unique, based on its location, size, and the surrounding climate.

Unfortunately, most of the streams in the western U.S. have been structurally starved of wood (largely from a lack of beaver activity) for the last two centuries. Many of our waterways now flow fast and straight rather than storing water in the valley bottoms and floodplains that create riparian habitat.

By slowing and spreading water, low-tech structures boost soil moisture retention and raise water tables. This, in turn, provides protein-rich forbs and insects for birds, ungulates, and other wildlife. Reconnecting floodplains improves both surface and groundwater availability, and also lessens the erosive energy of floods. Boosting soil moisture and vegetation production keeps restored areas cooler when temperatures soar.

For these reasons, the National Wildlife Federation is exploring opportunities to expand low-tech restoration techniques onto the grasslands of eastern Montana, where late-summer water is in scarce supply for the greater sage-grouse and other species.

Beaver ponds provide an “emerald refuge” in a landscape burned by the Sharps Fire, ID (photo by Joe Wheaton)

Water doesn’t burn

Ranchers have plenty of anecdotal stories of wildlife and livestock flocking to wet, green places when wildfires sweep across the West.

Recent wildfires in the West proved that wet habitat is invaluable as a refuge, and possibly as a firebreak, too: the only remaining green areas amidst miles of scorched rangeland were active beaver ponds that kept the flames at bay.

“Beavers and beaver dam analogs make a lot of sense for mitigating impacts during a fire,” says Wheaton.

Beaver ponds provide a refuge for fish and wildlife in a burned landscape near Hailey, ID (photo by Joe Wheaton)

It also makes sense to incorporate low-tech stream restoration into post-fire recovery efforts as a tool to protect and improve existing wet habitat. For instance, the Bureau of Land Management is planning to build low-tech structures to accelerate riparian recovery and mitigate mudslides during runoff after the Goose Creek Fire in Utah.

In northeast Nevada where the South Sugarloaf Fire scorched 230,000 acres this summer, the U.S. Forest Service is planning to use low-tech restoration to protect critical habitats that didn’t burn from potential damage during post-fire runoff and debris flows.

Similarly, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game is using low-tech restoration not just to protect critical habitats post-fire, but also to aid in ecosystem recovery on the recent Sharps Fire near Hailey.

In all these examples, the agencies hope to also study the effectiveness of low-tech restoration and to document the vegetation response at restored sites versus unrestored control sites. “If we’re making a difference at a scale that matters, then we should be able to see the positive impacts of low-tech stream restoration from space,” says Maestas.

Especially, he adds, as restored wet places stay greener longer.

Learn more about the National Wildlife Federation’s advocacy for beaver restoration here.

]]>137264More Beavers Equals More Birdshttps://blog.nwf.org/2018/04/more-beavers-equals-more-birds/
Wed, 04 Apr 2018 20:10:39 +0000http://blog.nwf.org/?p=134251We know that beavers are busy critters. They build habitat for fish and wildlife when they create natural structures in streams and rivers that slow down and spread out water. …

]]>We know that beavers are busy critters. They build habitat for fish and wildlife when they create natural structures in streams and rivers that slow down and spread out water. And this furry keystone species also builds resilience to climate change by improving water availability and water quality.

In Montana, partners are discovering just how important beavers are for birds, too. The University of Montana’s Bird Ecology Lab in Missoula is documenting the differences in bird abundance and diversity in areas where beaver are active versus absent.

“Back in the 1950s, Ducks Unlimited recognized that beaver ponds are the key to waterfowl production across large parts of North America” -Anna Noson, avian ecologist with the Bird Lab.

Unfortunately, North America’s beaver populations are just 10% of their historic numbers due to extensive trapping that took place in the centuries before trapping regulations were put in place. But thanks to recovery and translocation efforts, many states in the East and Midwest once again support robust beaver populations. Most of the research on the relationship between birds and beavers has focused on these areas, and is less documented in western states. But beavers may be even more important for creating bird habitat in the arid West.

Spreading The Love (And The Water)

Wet areas comprise just 1-2% of the landscape in the western U.S. Yet more than 80% of all wildlife species depend on these “emerald isles” because they provide nutritious food, good hiding and breeding cover—and, of course, a water source. Ponds created by beavers are often the sole source of wetland habitat in dry states. In Montana, for instance, cavity nesting waterfowl like hooded mergansers, wood ducks and buffleheads are usually found breeding in beaver ponds.

Unfortunately, the West has lost many of these precious wet spots.

“I’ve seen some numbers that say we’ve lost as much as 90% of our riparian habitat in the West,” says Noson.

Prior to extensive unregulated trapping, western streams would have looked very different than what we see today. Rather than straight, narrow ribbons of green, beavers would have spread the water across the floodplain to create wide swaths of riparian shrubs. That means we would have seen more birds, too.

Belted kingfisher, by Ken Miracle

Slow Water, More Food

Noson became interested in the importance of beavers back in 2004 while counting birds on small streams—“the kind you can jump over”—as part of a statewide stream survey effort. She compared the breeding bird community across three different types of stream reaches in southwest Montana: active beavers, inactive beavers (with evidence of old dams and wet meadows), and no beaver activity.

“In the areas without beavers, the riparian corridor was really just one willow plant wide. But the active beaver reaches were full of ponds ringed by wetland plants and shrubs,” says Noson.

The bird abundance and diversity increased exponentially in the streams with old or active beaver sites. Noson found eight species typically associated with wetland and riparian habitats, such as belted kingfishers and blue-winged teals, along with several at-risk species like the sandhill crane.

Why are birds flocking to beaver ponds?

“Where there’s slow water, there’s more food,” says Noson.

Beavers ponds generate a much higher density of biodiversity than fast-moving water. Ponded areas allow more plants to grow and more insects to breed in the water and in the surrounding soil. In turn, these plants and bugs bring in hungry birds.

Yellow warbler in willows, by Dick Hutto

Restoring Beavers Brings in the Birds

Last year, Trout Unlimited asked the Bird Lab to help monitor Ninemile Creek, a stream in western Montana degraded from past mining activities that is now being restored. The goal is to document whether the restoration project benefits critters living alongside the creek as well as the fishing living inside the creek. Noson launched the monitoring project last May and June during birds’ breeding season. She set up counts along several different reaches, including a reference reach not impacted by mining with healthy habitat and plenty of beaver activity.

“I found an incredible diversity of birds utilizing the many beaver ponds in the reference reach,” says Noson.

This included an assortment of neotropical migratory birds, like warblers and willow flycatchers. In contrast, Noson found only a handful of species in the mining-impacted reaches where beaver hadn’t moved in yet. Here, the creek was channelized with steep banks, no ponded habitat, and a much narrower strip of riparian vegetation. Most of the birds she counted were conifer-dependent species rather than waterfowl or migratory birds that rely on riparian habitat.

“There’s no question mark—more beavers equals more birds,” said Noson.

Noson plans to continue monitoring birds along Ninemile Creek as Trout Unlimited restores the stream and beavers move downstream. By reconnecting the floodplain to the creek, beavers will have access to more food sources (woody shrubs and trees) and more room to build dams. And as the beavers do their job, they’ll bring in more birds, too.

How We Help

National Wildlife Federation is committed to helping beavers recover as an essential part of the western landscape by working in close cooperation with partners in Montana and beyond. To learn more: https://www.nwf.org/Northern-Rockies-and-Pacific-Region/Northern-Rockies